Logs:To the Moon!
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| RL Date: 11 January, 2012 |
| Who: Iolene, Ila STed by Leova |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Iolene meets a stranger. |
| Where: Bowl, Iolene's Weyr |
| When: Day 2, Month 10, Turn 27 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Tiriana/Mentions |
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| Clouds diffuse what should have been bright midmorning sun, leaving only a grayish light and not much warmth for the reddish girl huddled on the steps outside the weyrleaders' complex. The teenager's bovine-hide jacket with its Ruathan minor-holder-underling knot is a reddish brown, her haphazardly wavy reddish-blonde hair has what should have been a perky bow in it, and her mittens are bright find-me-in-the-snow red. They're mittens with which she's also determinedly clutching a roll of hide and a graphite stick, the better to scribble with the latter on the former, now and again eyeing what dragons lurk beyond. The worst is her nose, though, red from cold or crying... and her eyes, not much better what with their pink inner rims and her lashes sticking together the way they are, all narrowed at her work. Weyrwoman though she may not be, having a gold dragon that might occasionally get grounded comes with the perks of one of those ground weyrs off the weyrleaders' complex. The knot she should wear, that's been impressed upon her to wear, is held aloft as a decoration for the ponytail her blonde hair is up in, and lacks the decorative tassels prominent in even the junior most weyrwoman. But there, there catching the glints of that dulled morning sun is that distinctive thread of telltale gold as Iolene steps out of the living caverns with steps that head homewards, to those steps the reddish girl's claimed. It takes a while for the slightly younger girl (or perhaps a lot younger, two Turns an eternity for teenagers) to notice, what with the size of the Bowl and the fact that Iolene just doesn't have the mass of what's heretofore been attracting her gaze. She shivers, scratches her nose with the end of the stick, and her next stroke is a full-arm /slash/ on the hide that has her eyeing it in dark satisfaction. Next comes some writing, and then a dark scribble and... there's something coming. Her head lifts, the expressive features tangibly shifting between is-she-late? worry to a quick glance that she is, in fact, no longer sitting smack dab in the middle of the stairs like she'd been when the last person went by... to brittle hope. "Hello?" she says, sitting up to try and catch Iolene's attention like it could, somehow, make a difference in her life. Only, when she catches sight of those golden glints, she pats at her own hair awkwardly as though to flatten it, or curl it, or make it something neat and tidy and other than it is. Once closer, it's apparently Iolene is doublefisting a pair of apples today, both of which have bites taken out of it and seem to go up to her mouth by turn. Snap. Chew. Swallow. It's an easy life and how fast people could forget more troubling times, though to her credit, it's been over a year. The leggy teenager is all ready to sidestep the obstacle, though not without a curious little look down and one of those polite smiles until there's a voice of brittle hope and the gesture where the seated girl's hand falls into her own hair causing Io to reach up, apple and all, to try and pat her own self-consciously. The voice on its own is enough for the blonde girl to stop, though she's taken two steps more since the hello, in a late reaction, and now stands on the step the girl's claimed. "Hi," is a voice far sunnier than the day itself and a smile that flashes downward. "You look cold, are you cold? Do you want an apple, though I... well," here Io has the grace to look sheepish, "I took a few bites out of it but it's still good. I'm not sick, I promise." Apple-in-hair gets Iolene a briefly puzzled look from the girl, one that becomes an again-awkward scramble between getting up and not going /anywhere/ as the goldrider stands over her, as though any instructions her mother might have given her have flown out of feathery head. That, or smashed into each other: system fault. She blinks a couple of times when Iolene starts talking, but the sunniness in that voice is nothing like she's found around here yet. She almost smiles. And then she does. "I am /so/ cold," the girl admits, the smile getting a little quirkier, because it's all her fault, really. And when she starts to get up, it's in a burst of energy slowed only by the need to keep an eye on Iolene, just in case the other girl signals to do something else, something different. "An apple? Really? Oh, I'm not picky, not... please." A flicker of something, bafflement perhaps, but also would-be recognition, lights Iolene's eyes. But it's just a flicker that has no place in the young woman's good naturedly expressive face for long and disappears as she looks down at her two apples and offers the less eaten of the two. "If I had known I wouldn't have bit into it, but if you don't mind?" There's that smile again, this time colored a little shy and just as awkward, perhaps, as the girl's movements to stand. "I'm Io. Come on, you can warm up by my hearth, unless," a glance carries back over her shoulder to the bowl and the activities there, and then swings back slowly to study the red girl and her hide, "You have business right here? Right now? Are you waiting for someone? You shouldn't sit here for too long. Tiriana might- actually," Io's smile suddenly blossoms, "If you want, you can sit here all day." "Of course not," the girl assures, curling up the hide and then just hanging onto it and the stick with one hand while reaching to take that apple with the other, her smile turning up the wattage. And while there's a sort of distracted recognition at the mention of Iolene's nickname, it just doesn't seem important the way it might be later, talking to her family: just, "I'm... Ila," with a little embarrassed smile for the similarity. "Me? Business? I wish! I'm... I'm just tagging along, really, it's a long story. I'm sort of waiting, but they'll be," and Ila tosses her head like it could be hours, months, who cares, in a way that would be much more dramatic if weren't for that red nose of hers. All set to tag along, she looks hopefully at Iolene again, only to not stifle a laugh very well at the goldrider's sally: maybe she doesn't /get/ it, but there's enough for some naughty admiration. "No thank you! I would... love, /love/, to see your... they call it the same thing, right, Weyr?" "Weyr," agrees Iolene verbally, but suddenly that blossomed smile diminishes a little. "But I just like to call it my home." Now that one of her hands is free, it's now extended in a friendly sort of way; a 'come on with me far away' sort of way, paired with a quick little grin. "It's up the stairs and down that hall." And she's tripping upwards, whether Ila has her hand or not and headed towards that place called home: dimly lit without the aid of glows, but with a fire going in the hearth. On the table in the receiving area is a basket of more fruit and some multi-grain rolls. It's... it's neat enough, but the teenage lifestyle Io lives is visible in the clothing that spills out from beneath the glass beaded curtain that segregates the bedroom. "I know what it's like to be cold," says the teenager, "So sit and get warm and you can wait for your-," Io skips a beat, waiting for a response to her trailed off comment. "Your home," Ila agrees, eager to follow along, literally as well with an apologetic finger-wiggle for /her/ hands being full. She's a little slower, looking around like she's memorizing the details, careful not to trip and fall down the steps and embarrass herself. That way, anyway. Once inside, she stashes her hide on that table without thinking to ask first, all eyes for... /beaded/ /curtain/ and /fireplace/ and, "Mother," she sighs, kneeling by the hearth where she can hold her hands out to it. "She's visiting, you know? And I finally, finally got to come, I've only asked five thousand times, only it's so cold and it's..." she sneaks a look at Iolene. "It was so boring? Before you came. I thought there would be dragons flying everywhere and /roaring/ or something, and maybe a duel." Mother. Iolene's expression freezes, but with Ila so entranced by the weyr itself, perhaps she won't notice that moment's pause where the once exile has to look somewhere else; where she has to busy herself with shedding her outdoor clothes and leaving them in a puddle in front of the fireplace. "Is this your first time in a Weyr? I remember when we first came," the young goldrider frowns, and what comes forth is a gloss over many details, "It was daunting and the Weyr seemed so large, but I don't know what I expected. I don't think I really expected anything exciting. Nothing like duels." Wait. Io blinks to where Ila is now, and the dragonrider asks the non-rider, "/Can/ dragons duel?" Indeed, Ila's been far too engaged by getting warm, by rubbing her mittened hands here and there against each other, with an eye to easing them off... and then there's the matter how red noses tend to start dripping upon returning inside, and how so /far/ she's avoided sniffing super-loudly or wiping her nose on her sleeve. So far. She does look back for another glimpse of Io when she replies, though. "Almost, and I was just a kid then, so it doesn't count. I think this place would be large to anyone, though, right? And..." Io doesn't know? "Can they? I was thinking about F'lar and Lord Fax and how exciting it was? And they say people do, here, duel. Nobody's sung about dragons that /I/ heard but maybe it's a secret?" Iolene certainly looks confused enough to not know the answer to that and her steady blue gaze strays to the ledge just beyond where Ysavaeth reclines in that dim morning light. "Ysa says it's unlikely, but she'd like to see it some day. It'd be interesting, she thinks. Or at least she gathers from-," but the would-be endless stream of Io-babble halts when the young woman flops herself onto a couch in front of the fire. "But it would be unfair if dragons of different colors or sizes fought against each other. Like, no one could possibly beat Ysavaeth in a duel." That yanks Ila's head right around. Did Io's dragon just arrive? Did Ila miss a chance to gawk at her? "So she really does... talk to you? What is it even like? And so nobody could get her even if they were little and sneaky? I'm so /jealous/," but she's smiling back over at Io, it just can't be helped, as though the other girl has a dress that probably wouldn't fit even if she tried it on, but is still miles of pretty all the same. Of course... then a louder sniffle can't be stifled either and, reddening even more, she reaches back to scratch her head... which conveniently also /happens/ to rub her nose on her jacket sleeve. "/My/ life is /over/," Ila declares. Unaware and unperturbed at Ila's emotions in regards to her presence, Ysavaeth continues to recline outside. What's visible of the sleek regal gold is glimpses of her pale hide as it absorbs the little light available only to reflect it back in all its well-oiledness. Inside the weyr, Iolene may have found her match, as the litany of words and questions and the dramatics leaves the blonde woman reeling that even a succession of blinks finds difficult to catch up with. So, she does what any adult probably did /with her/ years ago, address that final statement while inching herself up on that couch to look in upwards fascination at Ila. "Why is your life over? What's wrong? Are you ill? Do you-, are you-?" Baffled. "I..." what? "My nose is just... I'm so /sad/," Ila tells her listening ear, someone who's been so nice and, maybe better, hasn't heard it a hundred times before. "Do you have a hankie? Or a cloth or a napkin or something? I promise I won't keep it. I... we were going to get /married/, this spring, and it was going to be so pretty. But Jack is stupid and he's just awful and they're, they're going to have a /baby/..." And then she turns away with her arm over her face and just breathes. This girl who can't be so much younger than herself speaks of marriage and babies and the future that's unwilling to cooperate and Iolene's expression of confusion disappears, leaving in its wake an incredibly silent sadness; that type of silence that might ache given the space to just be as quiet as it can be. But Ila speaks and Io digs up an expressionless smile from somewhere deep within. "I-," the request buys her time and Io vaults up to scurry to her bedroom to retrieve a towel. "It's clean," is her quiet reassurance. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Do you want Ysa to go eat Jack?" Because this is the solution Iolene's brain comes up with first. A freckled hand fumbles out of its sleeve, mitten long-ago dropped in her lap, until it can clutch the towel and then retreat. There is a honking noise, and then more sniffling that verges on outright crying, and sniffling some more. "/I'm/ sorry," Ila admits. "I didn't mean to..." She peeks up. "I /do/. I shouldn't. I do. And stomp on him and flame him and..." her glance slides away. "I'm so stupid." "There's a lot of people I want to stomp on, and flame. And have Ysavaeth munch," admits Iolene, the smile she offers not quite gracious enough to just be a joke. "But she refuses, stating the insides of assholes, my world not hers, are probably too indelicate for her system." Iolene takes her seat once the towel changes hands and looks to Ila. "Did... are... are they going to get married now? Will she keep the baby? Or...?" A blanche tints her cheeks as she ducks her head down while asking the most nosy of all questions. "Do you still want him?" Joke or not just a joke, this time, the sniffle comes out more like a laugh. "Does she only like fancy food?" Ila asks in the middle, right before Iolene asks the hard questions. "/They're/ going to get married, and live in his uncle's cothold that /we/ fixed up, and of course she will, won't she? and... and..." she's descending again, but she can't not answer. It's not in words, and she's stopped looking back at Io again, but: a jerk of her head. "I /hate/ it." Io doesn't have to be looking to feel that jerk; not with the way it's done and the shift in the air or the tangible feel of Ila's emotional descent. "None of it seems fair. To you. You should forget him. Move away. Move here." The last is added with an air of impulsive, expedient thought. "Can't you? You don't have to go back with your mother, right? If you're old enough to get married... aren't you old enough to determine your own life?" Iolene's chin lifts and a slight turn of her body angles her face to the holder girl. "You could be a candidate some day. Not now, because Rielsath's eggs have all hatched, but some day, right? And then become a dragonrider maybe and then never have to get married. Even though you might want to. But you don't have to anymore. Or you could just," Io's fingers pick blindly at a bit of loose thread on her sleeve, "Get married. I wanted to get married. But I Impressed instead." The bitterness of that is now only remnant traces blending near seamlessly in with the rest of her resigned tone; difficult to pick out unless listened for specifically. Those words don't sink down to Ila right away, but then... /Could/ she? "I..." Could she really make a difference, make her own decision, decide her own life? "You make it sound so /easy/," the girl half-exclaims, listening to Io and talking half over her all at the same time. "Of course I couldn't, my parents would... Everyone would say I..." She's staring at Iolene now, her nose still red even if it isn't so drippy, her eyes very intent. "Are you serious?" And then, missing the exact nature of Io's tone but not that there's /something/ going on, "You.. had to not get married?" "Lots of reasons why, but dragonriders don't marry," Iolene states in that unequivocal way; this is how it is and there's no changing it. And yet, Io purses her lips and looks backwards again, back to where Ysavaeth is but with a glazed, distant look. "Well, even if there was someone I wanted to marry now, dragonriders don't get marry. How can you get married when you'll have to cheat on them all the time when your dragon rises to mate?" A hand reaches out, followed by another and Io's arms slide about this girl she just met in a spontaneous hug. "You could stay here if you wanted. Your parents were ready to let you go with a boy. Don't see why coming here is any different." Oh, naivety. "I mean, if that's what you want, right? You could run away and run the fields and through the forests and to the ocean and just not live anywhere except where you want to." Oh, dreamer. That's something that Ila's going to take Io's word for, though when Iolene explains, Ila has to try and say something back even if it's only a wistful, wish-she-could-help, "I don't know." She shivers then, an unhappy tremor. Rising. Mating. It's the hug that eases her and she just can't help but hug the other girl back, too, as if that could make things better. "I wish I... I wish I could, and woudn't that just show them? He'd wish he hadn't then!" She squeezes Io, then relaxes, "You can do that, right? Run off, go to the ocean..." Where did that towel go? She has to blow her nose. "To the ocean," Iolene's succession of blinks indicates that, no, she wasn't aware she could do that. That for whatever reason the idea of leaving the Weyr not on business hadn't occurred to her. "I-... I could now, couldn't I? No one can stop us really. Me and Ysa and it would be nice to get away. To the ocean!" Enthusiasm colors the repetition and damn the towel, not that Iolene's even noticing Ila looking for it, she springs off from he chair, "You know how to find your way out? I would take you too, but Ysa... Ysavaeth is particular about who rides her and we're /supposed/ to be transporting some crafters to Tillek today but she delegated it to someone else." Some other hapless dragon who isn't as particular. "Yes?" There's a lot of blinking on Ila's part too, as Iolene gets her groove back, and then a few more as she realizes... but at least she has the towel back. She can blow her nose, and does. "You had me there for a minute," she says too gaily. "I started to believe you! But of course it's all right, I'll go. Have fun! With the ocean," and she comes up with a wide smile and even a, "Thank you." And she'll watch them go, just to rub it in. Iolene's regret for not taking Ila along is but momentary before she's smiling with her own wave tossed over a shoulder as she ambles out to the ledge to where Ysaveath is. Too trusting, leaving a perfect stranger in her room with all her worldly possessions; but perhaps the idea that someone might steal from a person, who is attached to a monstrosity of a beast (however sleek and pretty), just goes beyond any of Iolene's imaginings. It might take a while for Io to convince Ysavaeth that it's time to leave and yet longer still for the goldrider to put all the straps and harnasses onto her dragon, but eventually, eventually, she's off to the ocean. Just for fun. Just because some strange person put the idea into her head that she's /allowed/ to leave without reason now. |
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